The campaign by the owners of tourist apartments against the decree law promoted by the Government, which drastically regulates the supply of this type of housing, has today opened a new front. The Barcelona employers’ association, Apartur, has sent letters to the head of the Mobile World Congress, John Hoffman; to the ISE, Mike Blackman and also to the general director of Fira Internacional de Barcelona, ??Constantí Serrallonga, warning of the deficit of places that the application of the decree could lead to.
“This interventionist measure, without consensus among the interested parties, could lead to the elimination, in the capital alone, of more than 50,000 beds available for events of this type, seriously impacting the image of Barcelona,” reads the letter signed by Enrique. Alcántara, president of Apartur. According to the association, the large fairs and events held in Barcelona usually occupy around 40,000 seats.
The association calls on John Hoffman, Mike Blackman and Constantí Serrallonga to schedule a meeting “as soon as possible, given that this is a matter of urgency.” Not in vain, the regulation, approved via decree-law by the Government in November, is expected to be ratified by the Parliament next week. The executive has promoted this regulation to try to alleviate the residential housing deficit in more than 250 municipalities in Catalonia and to provide an effective tool to municipalities interested in limiting this type of tourist offer.
The new regulations leave it in the hands of each City Council to regulate the volume of tourist apartments, setting a maximum of 5 homes of this type for every 100 inhabitants (they can reach 10 for every 100 if it is sufficiently justified) and without setting any minimum. At the same time, the regulation obliges the owners of tourist homes to request an urban planning license from the City Council in a maximum of five years and renew it every five years, so the number of licenses granted will depend on the decision made by each City Council.
